West Brom threw away a dream start against Sunderland at the Stadium Of Light as the Black Cats pulled off a timely rescue job.

Sunderland conceded twice within a catastrophic opening five minutes as James Morrison and then Shane Long got West Brom off to a dream start.

But as a chorus of "Bruce out" rang around the Stadium of Light, his players responded to drag themselves back from the brink of disaster.

Nicklas Bendtner gave them hope with a 24th-minute strike, his first for the club, and Elmohamady followed suit within two minutes in a chaotic first half.

A rejuvenated Sunderland enjoyed the better of the game from that point on, but were unable to make the pressure tell and had to make do with a point on a day when three were perhaps what was required.

Both sides have now won just one of their seven Barclays Premier League games to date this season, and while there was a certain degree of relief among the home sections of a crowd of 34,815, there was a realisation too that things must improve markedly if they are to achieve their ambitions.

Bruce went into the game having endured the kind of week which is the stuff of nightmares for a football manager.

A poor display at Norwich on Monday night ended in a 2-1 defeat which piled the pressure back on the former Manchester United defender, and the fall-out from defender Titus Bramble's arrest over allegations of sexual assault and possession of a class A drug barely 24 hours later did little to ease his pain.

By 3.05pm, he could have been forgiven for started to contemplate the fate his most vociferous critics have been demanding for several weeks.

A must-win game in the eyes of many could hardly have started in any more depressing fashion for Bruce when Morrison, one of the smallest men on the pitch, was allow to meet Chris Brunt's fourth-minute free-kick unchallenged to head home from close range.